My experience with the Malifaux World Series (Part 6- Round 5: Journeys end)

 Welp. 

I made it through! 

5 rounds. 5 weeks. 6 blog posts. Go me!

The single worst piece of photo editing you've ever seen you say? 

My opponent for round 5 was available to immediately engage me in conversation to tee up a time, discuss deployments and start the process of entering details into the app. This was a great start. We were looking at only a 10 hour time difference, and whilst this time difference made getting weekday games in possible for the first time, we still opted for a my Saturday morning/his Friday night game seeing as that was just the easiest option for us. 

Going into this round I knew even if I pulled out a victory there was no way I could place in anywhere near a position I felt was relevant or something to be proud of. If you required more context for exactly how I managed to claw my way to the position of 60th out of (now) 68 (we've had 5 players drop) players maybe do yourself a favour and go back to the beginning found here: https://beardfaux.blogspot.com/2025/01/my-experience-with-malifaux-world.html. 

Now that we've updated our progress it's time to discuss the pool. 

This was such an easier round to plan for than round 4 thanks to a more versatile scheme pool and easier map to play on. I selected bottom Right Hand Corner

Like round 2, I opted to drop Linh Ly into this round for the same reasons I did round 2. Misaki has not only disappointed me this tournament, but also even when she's performing at her best, I've never felt she was particularly strong at standing in a spot and not dying which is the prime pre-requisite for scoring on this strategy. My opponent has been playing Neverborn this tournament so my big concerns were seeing Nekima Brood-mother, Dreamer Insomniac and of course both versions of Lucius. So far my opponent has dropped Kastore1 in round 1, Kastore2 in round 2, Nekima 2 in round 3 and looks like a henchman led crew in round 4. The wide spread showed me no discernable pattern that would help me nut out what my opponent was bringing, whilst my own track record would probably make it quite clear to my opponent that I would be dropping Linh.

With Linh in mind, I was fairly confident in my ability to score power ritual and espionage, however if my opponent declared Lucius Dishonored I would have to drop power ritual for something my opponent couldn't trivially deny. If my opponent has played against Linh before, I could expect that he will take sweating bullets, and to be honest, I don't think there's much I can do to play around that, so he was likely to get 1 point, so I'd have to cede that point and try to deny the end point. All of that however  was a problem for future me. For now, I just had to try get some practice games in, and wait for Saturday. 

Saturday came and it just wouldn't have been right for a game to go off without at least one hitch. When we worked out our game time with time zone differences, neither of us had realised that Friday night was Valentines day. Luckily I had not yet made plans for Sunday morning so it was easy enough for us to reschedule by another 24 hours. The list I'd decided on was a fairly standard Linh list that I've run a few times. This was the list I was practicing round 2 with (before a last minute Asami drop forced me  to change gears on the fly).

I know Zheng isn't *technically* a "story" model, sue me

Zheng adds a lot to Linh's keyword in my opinion. The biggest weakness of the keyword is it's lack of solid damage output (which Zheng fills with his 2-5 min3 attacks), and he also doubles down on resilience which is the keyword's entire schtick. His personal weakness of dying to a dedicated beater is offset in story by Thanh's take the hit, silent protector upgrade for hard to kill (which handily provides another drain on an opponents hand if I wanted to forgo his actual bonus action) and the sheer volume of healing in-crew, especially with Linh, Storyteller. When building a list with stone users, I've consistently found warning growl to save me 2-3 stones every game, as I don't need to stone an opponents focussed swing to a negative so Zheng is just such a strong value proposition. Once we add that Linh Ly cancels cheated triggers, the whole crew becomes a tough nut to crack in a vacuum. 

Unfortunately games aren't played in a vacuum and even when they are, just keeping models alive, doesn't win games. 

On that note, my opponent declared lucky luscious Lucius. Naturally he was one of the masters I mentioned above that I would have to watch out for. Interesting thing about me and Lucius. I have never won a game against Lucius even pre-erratta. Not that I was getting many games against him before the changes last year, but after the changes I've seen him nearly ten times, and every time is struggle street. Part of the reason I've not beat him post-erratta in my opinion is that he's impossible to pre-emptively counter which is generally my preferred playstyle: figure out what my opponent is about to do, and then try stop them. 

My Opponents declared list

My opponent submitted the above the night before our game was due which gave me a lot of time to second guess myself. I never once even thought I'd be having to deal with Alan "the raging fuckhead" Reid. I've often had a lot of words about why I don't feel comfortable dropping Red Library/Story into Bayou, and my reasoning has always been entirely around Diversion Aura. Without their above the curve bonus actions, Story/Red Library normal actions are not impactful. So I spent some time trying to work out how I could kill Alan through soul stones as efficiently as possible, but didn't really land on a solid plan and (like always) just decided I'd have to wing it and see where the cards flip.

There was a hitch to all of this however. 1 hour before game, my opponent conceded due to meat-space things. 

Which is probably the most on-point way of ending this whole journey with another disapointment. 

At time of writing there's a few games still to be played that will affect final standings, but right now I'm sitting at 49th place. There will doubtless be some last minute shuffles in the standings as the last few players straggle in their games which will move my standing around. I wouldn't be surprised to see my final place in the mid 50's which wasn't my target position, and the last round concession sure as hell means I didn't earn my spot anyway. 

Anyone who wants to see final standings they'll be found here: https://www.longshanks.org/event/22358/

My final thoughts on the MWS is that it may not be for me at least not right now. One of the reasons I wanted to play was to expand my opponent pool and see meta's I didn't yet understand and three of the four games I got to play where against my own faction in crews that I already understood intimately because they are the most busted thing within Thunders. Whilst final standings are still straggling in, top 10 players are locked, 4 of which are Thunders players. Of the 20 games, those top 10 players played they declared Asami ten times. The winner of the tournament declared her 4/5 games. 

I really hope Wyrd pay attention and realise they took a problem master and "fixed" her by making her more of a problem. There's also that this gaining grounds packet is starting to feel "solved" for me. It's time for a shakeup. 

So when next I foray into the MWS one of the two issues above will need to be fixed. Either Asami and maybe even Shen need to get hit by the nerf bat or we need to see a new Gaining Grounds packet. Either way despite my anxiety and obsession everyone I've played against have been truly lovely people. 

I will be back. Just at a time when my own problems and schedule is a little more open. 

So long and thanks for all the fish, MWS. Be seeing you. 

Lance, out.